


if the shoe fits

by thepractitioner



Category: BLURRYFACE - Twenty One Pilots (Album), Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Anorexia, Blurryface Era, Bulimia, Debby Ryan - Freeform, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, F/M, Friendship, Hospitalization, Illnesses, Josh Dun & Tyler Joseph Are Best Friends, Josh Dun & Tyler Joseph Friendship, Major Illness, Mental Health Issues, Purging, Sad Josh, jenna joseph - Freeform, jim dun - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2020-03-13 20:49:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18948382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thepractitioner/pseuds/thepractitioner
Summary: there is no explanation for something so ugly. it rears its head without warning, its grip unyielding and unnatural. this feels wrong, he knows it is wrong, but he can't let go.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all, just a quick disclaimer. Please read the tags! If you are adversely affected by depictions of eating disorders and food related behaviors this fic is not for you. The last thing I want for this piece is to harm others. I used Tyler and Josh purely as characters and this by no means reflects who they are in daily life. Thank you so much for reading!

He doesn't know where it started but he does know where it ends. He's been at the end before, even though be barely remembers it, and it's a sickly sweet numbness that tempts him every moment of the day. And one day, Josh decides, it's just not worth the fight anymore. 

Yesterday was fine, good even. In fact, the days were all fairly decent now, especially because they were on tour and the routine of show after show was demanding his full attention. There wasn't any room to think of anything else; only doing what he loved with the person he cared about the most. Wake up, eat. Train every other day. Eat. Soundcheck. Eat. Play. Eat. Sleep. Do it all again the next day. Most days it was that simple, and the little spare time he had was spent doing random mundane tasks that accumulated over time. Calling his family, doing interviews, walking his dog, and playing video games were all neatly tucked into the little crevices in his daily routine. 

So you can imagine how surprised Josh is when he finds himself growing more and more anxious for seemingly no reason. With Tyler living with Jenna in the other bus, they were apart more than they used to be. It leaves him more room to think about things, and when Josh thinks too much, everything goes to shit.

It starts harmlessly, or at least he thinks it's harmless. He convinces himself that it's because he needs to stay on top of the physical demand of touring and starts training every day. He's restless until the little red activity ring on his Apple Watch closes, and very quickly it goes from passive acknowledgment to obsession. Tyler asks him to go out for brunch on Friday in New York, and he delicately skirts the real reason why he's avoiding it. After all, he's had lots of practice at this.

"I wish I could but Jim raised hell in the bus last night. I think he needs to burn off some steam or something...I don't want him destroying anything else" he says. Tyler doesn't bat an eye, and why would he? Josh is completely fine.

When Josh gets home from his run with Jim, he doesn't reach for his usual protein bar. _Not worth it_ , he thinks, grabbing an apple. It's funny, he can't remember the last time he ever switched up this snack. So he counts it as a win, considering it a break in his usually very rigid routine, but pays little mind to the nagging voice in his head that actually celebrates the lower calorie food. When he stands a half hour later to grab his glasses, he gets lightheaded and hangs on to the couch for dear life. The feeling is so familiar, so intoxicating, and he loves it. 

The day goes on and Josh is good, great even. He smiles through an interview with Tyler, poking fun at the recent memes of his best friend jumping off the piano in very unfortunate positions. In turn, Tyler starts to tease him about his fondness for Oreos. 

"Josh has literally tried every imaginable flavor. He's even tried to bribe the company to send him discontinued ones. Traditional Double Stuf is the clear winner of course, the classic - if I buy them now I have to hide them!" Tyler says, laughing and nudging Josh's shoulder. Any other day and this would be so normal, harmless. Today, all he hears is that he's _bad_. But he can't let the camera or Tyler see that it really gets under his skin, so he doubles over in laughter to disguise his sudden self-consciousness. Before he can come up with something clever, the interviewer hops in on the fun.

"I wish I could eat Oreos all day and take my shirt off during shows!" And Josh knows his smile falters a little and feels Tyler inhale slightly next to him. It's not the first time Josh has had interviewers come at him with uncomfortable comments like this one, but he doesn't have the energy to forge a mental barrier against it. Thankfully, it's not even a second before Tyler changes the topic entirely; he uses the remark to talk about the drum setup on the new tour, how much time it took to engineer. Josh knows he took part in the rest of the conversation but remembered none of it; all he could think about was _how dare he take his shirt off during shows?_

Afterwards, his best friend approaches him and Josh knows what's coming. 

"You okay man?" He asks, and Josh smiles and nods. 

"Of course. I've gotten far worse," he replies, earning a fond smile from Tyler. He doesn't buy it - they've been best friends since high school, and Tyler can tell when something gets under Josh's skin. But if his best friend couldn't handle it, he'd ask for help. They'd come too far for anything else.

They're getting ready for the show, the soundcheck going flawlessly. After the soundcheck, they hang out in the dressing rooms with a full catered buffet staring them down. Josh's stomach pangs with its emptiness; yeah, he ate lunch, but no one was around to tell him not to feed Jim his chicken or to eat all of the rice on his plate instead of throwing half of it away. His pride blinds him to the reality of the situation, and god knows that he isn't going to ruin his successful day.

He grabs a plate, ignoring the slight shake of his hands as he surveys the options in front of him. There are too many choices, too many unknown factors. Even on his best days the buffets are difficult, always have been, because there is little room for control and he never knows how the food has been prepared or what it might be. And while sometimes he can definitely fool himself into not giving a fuck about the grease or lack of vegetables or creamy mashed potatoes, today is not one of those days.

It takes him longer than it should to settle down with a plate. A little bit of salmon, some sweet potatoes, a salad (no dressing, but no one will know that), and a dinner roll. He thinks he can do it, knows he has to have energy for the show. When he chooses a seat further away from the couch, he relishes the fact that the television is on and Tyler is pretty engrossed in it along with the rest of the crew. So Josh does exactly what he promised himself he'd never do again, he tricks everyone around him. It's so _easy_ it hurts - it comes from years of practice, but he hasn't done it in years.

The behaviors that seemed so far away are suddenly right in front of him. He spends the first five minutes cutting up his food, then the next meticulously moving it around his plate, mixing things together and creating an illusion. When no one is talking to him or looking, he sneaks Jim bites of his food; especially the dinner roll. He takes a bite of the fish and the lettuce every so often, though he holds the bites on his fork for awhile so if anyone glances his way it seems constant. Bites are snuck into napkins and pockets until it looks like he's all but finished the meal even though he's eaten maybe half the salmon and some lettuce. _More than enough_. 

"Gotta pee," he mumbles to no one in particular. More like empty his pockets of the food that seems to be weighing him down. Fear races through his body as he prays no one has picked up on anything. It makes him feel high, a dirty little secret that makes him strong. He can do all of this without anyone noticing, anyone caring at all. So it has to be harmless, right?

The show is a blur, even more so than usual. He plays well, he thinks, and still takes his shirt off even though he really doesn't want to. The fans would notice if he didn't, and more importantly Tyler would, too. Adrenaline courses through his veins, and the sound of his heart pumping in his ears coupled with the drums silences all else. No matter what, nothing could take away the life that playing gave him, the sheer passion and joy of looking out at a crowd who felt it along with him. When the set's nearly over his energy is bleeding out of him like a stab wound, so he just hits the drums even harder. Tyler sees him and grins, arms raised to the heavens as the beat of Trees picks up. This is it. This is what saves them.

When they bow, Josh tries his hardest not to lean on Tyler too heavily. His body aches, like usual, but he can feel it in his bones tonight. The emptiness presses down on him, making him nauseous, and he feels like he's dying but oh so alive. He missed this.

"We're twenty one pilots and so are you". 

\--------------

Before he knows it, a week has passed. They're on the road again, wrapping up the Northeast and heading South. By now he's used to being on the bus alone with Jim, his girlfriend busy with a career of her own and likely completely oblivious to his problems, but the loneliness is harder than usual. Every day, his anxieties seem to be coming back and he feels powerless to stop them. 

Josh has to admit that if there's one thing he truly didn't miss about this, it's the morning. For some reason, the hunger hits him hardest right when he wakes up, reminding him of how lost he is. His body wills him not to move, his mind telling him that he must, and his world surrounded in a haze of partial denial and partial resignation. He wakes up each morning for a week and tells himself that this is temporary, that he will change things, and then nothing changes at all. Josh didn't think that the weakness and numbness would come so quickly, but he supposes his less-than-sedentary lifestyle probably contributed a bit. 

The lies get worse as they get easier to tell. Tyler is off in his own little world for the most part, writing songs on the road having consumed him, and Josh can't help but be resentful that his friend hasn't noticed. Sure, he expresses concern about Josh being a bit more withdrawn, but he accepts every excuse almost as if he wanted to believe them so that he didn't have to care. And this sends the drummer into a spiral of self-hatred, because how could he matter to anyone if he didn't matter to his best friend?

\--------------

_Five years earlier_

It happened so quickly Tyler barely registered it. They were hanging out in the quad, a group of four friends, the weather sunny and just barely squeezing into the sixties. At Ohio State, that was like paradise, and suddenly the whole campus was creeping out of their winter burrows to enjoy it. Josh was in a good mood, smiling and engaged in conversation like Tyler hadn't seen him do in awhile. The trees were budding overhead, pastel pinks against the fluffy white clouds. The moment was so perfect, he almost cried. And then it wasn't.

Another group of guys were tossing a frisbee around until the wind caught it and it hooked over towards their blanket. It landed near Josh, who raised his hand and stood to grab it.

"I got it!" He called to them. Then he fell and didn't get up. Tyler's entire world fell with him.

Twenty minutes later and an ambulance was on the scene. Josh was in and out, his face devoid of color and his breathing rapid and shallow. And Jesus, Tyler knew about this, but he didn't realize how _bad_ it was. Come to think of it, before this moment it had seemed like Josh was getting better as the seasons changed and they threw themselves further into their music.

"He's extremely tachycardic," the paramedic explained, "his resting heart rate is 106 beats per minute. We're going to do everything we can, but this coupled with his malnourishment could be detrimental." But Josh is a fighter, and Tyler rides in the ambulance with him to the hospital as an IV pumps him full of fluids and his eyes roll around in his head. He thinks it's the scariest thing he's ever seen until several hours later when it gets even worse.

Josh wakes up, and Tyler moves to hug him until he starts screaming and ripping at his IV. The heart rate monitor goes crazy, blood leaking onto the pristine sheets as the drip tears at his flesh. Tyler doesn't know what to do, and thankfully he's only frozen for about a second before a group of nurses are flooding the room. They usher him out, and Tyler can only watch his best friend losing his mind over the calories in an IV that is trying to save his life. He hates himself; hates that he didn't do something, that he didn't prevent this. So he walks away.

 

\--------------

_Present_

He buys a scale on his next outing to Target, hiding it in a huge fluffy blanket that he purchased solely for that purpose. Tyler tried to go with him, but Josh asked him if he and Jenna could take Jim for the day. So the happy couple brought his golden retriever to the dog park, and Josh slipped out alone. 

This doesn't mean he's alone for long. A couple fans spot him as soon as he gets there, and he patiently signs a few things and takes a few pictures. This complicates things, he thinks, as no one can see what he's really doing. Five minutes in and he's borderline panic attack, wandering the aisles with little sense of where he's going and the aching feeling that people are watching him. He grabs Oreos and some other snacks as a disguise, taking an abnormally long time to decide which flavors to get. 

Once he's sure no one is around, he finds the scales, grabs the most inconspicuous box on the shelf, and hurries to cover it up in the cart. When it's over he lets out a huge sigh and gets out of the aisle as fast as possible, feeling as though the piece of glass and metal is burning a hole in his cart. To make things worse, then he stumbles upon the frozen aisle and an entire row of ice cream is glaring at him in its multi flavored temptation. He'd already fucked everything up, so he figures he might as well go for gold and grabs three pints. 

Self checkout, Josh decides, is the best invention for anxious people all around; especially those who are mildly famous. That part is easy, and he makes it home free with his precious cargo secured. 

A few hours and a long run later and Tyler brings Jim back over. The dog immediately settles into Josh's lap and the drummer laughs, his hand tickling the soft fur of his ears. 

"You really tired him out, didn't you?" He says. "Thank God." 

"Yup, Jenna just loves him. He really doesn't get tired of fetch, huh?" Tyler replies, and Josh just shakes his head and sighs at Jim. The golden's eyes are already half closed, and Josh smiles as Tyler settles into the couch next to him. In the back of his mind, though, it's turmoil. 

_What if he sees it? What if he asks you what you were doing all day? What if he knows? He can't know. If he sees the food he'll think you're disgusting. Or even worse, he'll know why you have it._ The thoughts never stop, his brain coming up with more and more reasons why Tyler needs to leave immediately. But if Josh kicks his best friend out, he'll definitely suspect something. So Josh, naturally, asks him if he wants to play Super Smash Bros. And, naturally, the answer is yes. _Good, distraction is good. Then he'll leave for dinner with Jenna and you'll be alone again._

Tyler absolutely decimates Josh at Smash, which is nothing out of the ordinary. Josh gets a couple wins in here and there, but everyone knew that his talent lay in Mario Kart. He just could not get his mind around the sequences in Smash, the ridiculously specific way he had to hit buttons in order to get his character to do anything effective. It drove him crazy, but he still loved doing it. For a minute, he forgets about everything he's been dealing with in the last week. And he told himself that he wouldn't let his issues (they're just issues; he won't admit to himself it's a full on relapse at this point) get in the way of their friendship. Tyler would never know.

"Hey, Josh?" Tyler says a bit apprehensively. _Oh, fuck._

"Yeah Ty?" He replies, brushing off the panic that spikes in his chest. If he can convince Tyler there's no sense of anything wrong, maybe he'll drop it.

"I bought an engagement ring for Jenna...can you tell me what you think?" Relief crashes through him along with surprise. He knew Tyler had been thinking about it, had been wringing his hands over the perfect moment, but he didn't know it was coming this soon.

"Of course!" He exclaims, maybe a bit too excitedly. Tyler brandishes a box, jet black velvet, with a huge oval stone tucked away inside. It's encrusted with gorgeous diamonds that glitter with newness, and Josh's breath is taken away.

"Tyler, it's beautiful. She's going to love it," Josh says softly. His best friend starts explaining his proposal plans, clearly stressing over all of it, and he has to actually grab Tyler's shoulder to get the man to calm down for a moment. 

"Relax. You two are perfect for each other, and anything you do will be amazing," he says, feeling the tension leave Tyler's body ever so slightly. And Josh hates that all he can think about is how this will distract his best friend, will keep him so busy and occupied that he has nothing to be worried about anymore. Josh is free. Part of him wants to protest, wants to scream that he feels like he's drowning and can't stop it. The other part of him, though, loves drowning. Drowning means he doesn't have to think about anything else or feel anything else. And he doesn't want to worry Tyler or cause any more disturbance in the man's increasingly amazing life. He's not worth it.

Tyler leaves shortly after, carrying a weight of such sheer happiness with him that it seems to leech out of Josh. The drummer is exhausted by his mind and acts on the first impulse he feels; getting that scale out of its box.

The scale had been the first thing to go when Tyler raided his apartment all those years ago back at OSU. They smashed it together, he remembers, then threw it in a nearby lake to drown with his eating disorder and all its demands. And while he can't say he hasn't weighed himself since (thank you, Planet Fitness), it's been a long time since he's felt this compelled to see the number again.

He steals the batteries from his television remote to turn it on and watches the blinking light as it prepares for him to step on. Josh's breath catches; does he really want to do this? Once he knows, there's no going back. There's no erasing that number burned in his mind, no way out of a desire to make it shrink. _Do it._

160\. He cries.


	2. two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> he knows the monster and he loves it. it's an old friend, one that protects him as it hurts him, and he thinks that pain might be worth it if it means release.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forewarning: there is a moderately detailed description of a binging and purging episode in this chapter. If this could be triggering to you, PLEASE do not read this chapter (or, probably, this story).

Joshua William Dun is many things, but an idiot is not one of them. Every step he takes, every word he speaks, every _facial expression_ ; all carefully calculated to conceal his growing secret. It’s actually not that hard, what with everyone being so busy around him, but his mind has to come up with a detailed solution for every possible thing that could be thrown in his face.

That’s why the few moments in which he implodes are so violent. And yeah, he knew the scale would do this to him, but he had both planned and accepted that fact.

It’s Thursday night and they don’t have a show; Josh had his little outing to Target while the bus was stopped somewhere in Virginia and now it was wheels up on the way to North Carolina. He’s oddly calm about this, despite the gravity of what he’s about to do threatening to crush him into tiny little pieces. _Good_ , he thinks, _let me be smaller, even if I’m broken._

Fifteen minutes pass and half a pint of ice cream is gone. Every time his mind drifts into disassociation, he drags himself back; he is NOT about to eat just to taste none of it. God, it’s like the fucking heavens have blessed him, and he knows it’s only this good because he’s starving but that doesn’t matter at all. The spoon scrapes perfectly even layers off the top, never disrupting the smooth surface or peanut butter ripple that is beautifully sweet and salty on his tongue. Even though he eats it feverishly and with every intention to finish it as fast as possible, he will do it perfectly.

Josh stops half way through the pint to break open the package of Oreos he’s chosen. Just for irony’s sake he went with the Double Stuf, and he can’t help but let out a pitiful laugh as he remembers the interview that was several days ago but still definitely fresh in his mind. 

_Wonder what she’d think if she saw me now, he asks himself._

The tears start when, out of nowhere, one of their songs comes on shuffle in the bus. He thought he had chosen a playlist with none of their songs, but evidently Spotify had shifted over to the radio function and now Tyler’s voice blared through the speakers. It draws him out of his trance, just for a moment, and now his face is wet with tears coming on so fast he can’t wipe them away. His trembling hands take far too long to find his phone and fast forward the song; the relinquished and desperate croon of The Judge creates a deceptively cheery background to the scene.

But he doesn’t stop. Not now, not when he’s gotten this far. Josh soaks the Oreos in milk to soften them significantly, four at a time, because fuck everyone who thinks all of this will be staying in his body for long. He lets the liquid drip off the side before eating them — nothing is more disgusting than milk coming up on the other side. _Yep, Oreos are still my favorite thing on this Earth._ Even after all the painful experiences he’s had with them, he can’t get enough.

When he returns to the next half of the ice cream his composure starts to break as his body gets confused. _Eat, eat eat. Wait, no, stop. God I’m so hungry. Shit, I feel sick._ His mind and his stomach and his racing heart all jumble together until he’s pretty convinced he’s dying. It’s wonderful.

Carefully, methodically, he rips the empty ice cream carton up and hides it under other trash in the bin. The remainder of the Oreos, though not many, are tucked into the cabinet above his fridge that hides his shame. It’s not like Tyler would ever think twice about the package in his cupboard, but he couldn’t bear to see it every day.

Throwing up is his least favorite feeling on the planet. He actually used to have pretty serious emetophobia, incidentally, yet another one of those ironies that keeps the humor in this whole debacle. He both hates and loves the pain, of it, the fear of someone hearing him, the way it makes his heart stutter and his skin turn sickly. He isn’t crying anymore, never does when he’s so focused on cleansing himself, but his eyes water as he gags and retches. The shower drowns out the violence.

Once it’s over, once he’s dry heaved one too many times, he feels invincible. The first thing he does is tell himself that he can’t do this every day, not like he used to. There’s too much risk, both to his physical health and to preserving the delicate oblivion everyone else is currently submerged in. They can’t even be suspicious or he’ll have to stop completely, which secretly makes him want to out himself so that he’s forced to quit. But _you can’t fucking do that Josh, everyone will hate you. You’ve gone too far and fucked up too bad and you’ll have no one._

Josh is so exhausted he can’t think anymore. The last several nights have been sleepless, a very telling sign of his malnutrition given the fact that he’s a pretty routine sleeper when he’s healthy. He’s not sure whether it’s the physical or mental toll of binging and purging that knocks him out, but it’s always had that effect on him no matter what and for that he’s grateful. After cleaning up and taking the shower that’s been on for entirely too long, he curls up next to Jim, sighs, and falls fast asleep.

\-------------- 

 

Josh logically knew that with the physical nature of his job, he couldn’t just not eat. He hates the perception that eating disorders mean you don’t eat — if he did that, he probably wouldn’t even make it through a whole show. So of course he fucking eats, because if he fainted during a set the carefully designed world he’d created would be ruined in an instant. But that didn’t mean nothing was wrong with him.

He started up grocery shopping on his own again, whether it was ordering Instacart to the van or taking one of the spare cars they had if he had time. His reasoning was that it was a nice way to feel like a real person, to be an adult who wasn’t famous. Thankfully, while he had a security detail, they weren’t too concerned with him visiting run-down grocery chains whose regular consumer base included grandmas and husbands sent to pick up chocolate and tampons. Josh bought nothing without checking the calories for the lowest possible number, and luckily dieting was a huge trend so there were tons of options that looked perfectly inconspicuous (others, to his annoyance, advertised their diet-ness all over the packaging). The 60 calorie wraps were his new personal favorite, as they were gluten free and he’d recently made up his mind that gluten fucked with his digestion.

“You look like shit,” Tyler says, his voice stony and concerned. Josh _feels_ like shit, too, and he’s not going to cover it up because that’d be way too obviously a lie. Despite the 5 Advil he’d popped that morning, his head pounds unnaturally and he feels a bit shaky. They’d arrived in North Carolina early, around 5 AM, and Tyler had texted him around 6:30 anxious to leave the bus. Josh reluctantly agreed to make them both breakfast. Josh grimaces at his comment and nods, actually putting in effort to appear worse than he even felt.

“Yeah, I think I’m getting sick. Started feeling it midday yesterday and got real high on NyQuil last night,” he replied. Easy lie, believable because he threw a joke in there, and he had bought NyQuil at Target last night in preparation for the excuse to be used in the future. He’d even taken off the wrapper and dumped some in the sink.

“Sorry dude, that sucks. I’d leave you alone but I’m starving and Jenna wanted a smoothie for God knows what reason and abandoned me with no food in the fridge. We don’t even have Poptarts!” He complained, earning a sweet and sincere smile from Josh. _Good, he bought it._

“It’s okay,” Josh said, shrugging, “as long as you don’t care about getting sick.”

“Nah, man, I’ve got an immune system of steel and we both know that if I’m gonna get sick it’s just gonna happen then go away.” Typical Tyler, zero self preservation and too much caring for his own good. 

“Suit yourself. Omelet?” Josh asks, earning an enthusiastic nod from Tyler as the singer throws himself on the couch and pulls out his phone. The TV is on in the background, the morning weather report putting an extreme emphasis on the strangely cool weather.

Time for his magic show. Josh makes the eggs for them, Tyler’s with three eggs, some peppers, and sausage that he bought before his brain decided he wasn’t allowed to eat processed meat anymore. He deftly throws the yolks out of his eggs, then adds a bit of turmeric powder after he makes sure Tyler isn’t looking. He scrambles his and loads it with vegetables to make it seem like more food, adding a little water to keep them fluffy and voluminous.

“Ty, eggs are ready. You want some coffee?” Tyler shakes his head and says, “nah, orange juice?” Josh doesn’t miss a beat.

“Ah, sorry, I ran out of it yesterday trying to overdose on Vitamin C to get rid of whatever this is. Water ok?” Tyler nods and Josh fills him a glass while he plates the food; he puts his in a cereal bowl over some spinach and brings the two dishes over to the couch. The lack of bread would not be missed that way. Not that Tyler thinks about anything else when he has food in front of him.

Watching Tyler eat is torturous and mesmerizing. He tries not to stare but he’s just so damn jealous that his friend can down anything without thinking, without judging, without _caring_. It makes him angry on a level he can’t really explain; after all, he still has really no idea why it’s suddenly not in the cards for him to be eating what Tyler’s eating. He’d been doing fine, had forgotten he even had any issues at all for a little while, and now it was like they never left.

“You gonna be okay for the show tonight, Joshie?” Tyler asks, and Josh realizes he’s completely zoned out while staring at the TV. He blinks for a moment, staring blankly as he registers the question, then nods slightly.

“Yeah, I’ll be good once I get a nap in. I’ve played through worse. Remember that time back in 2014 when I fractured a rib? I think I can handle a little cold,” he says nonchalantly. Tyler nods, eyebrows raised.

“I remember telling you to sit that one out, too, but I suppose my role in this is to be the concerned wife who doesn’t actually have any say in the matter.”  
“Okay, wow, sexist.”  
“You know what I meant, Josh!”

They both burst into laughter at Tyler’s unintentionally offensive joke, the brunette turning a bit red in embarrassment. Josh had finished his breakfast and their banter feels normal, so achingly normal that he wants to spill everything to his best friend. He nearly does, just for a moment, before he sees his thighs pushed together underneath him and decides it’s definitely not the time.

Josh doesn’t run that day, needing to be ‘sick’, and he can only sit around for a few hours before his mind is screaming _gotta go go go!_ at him and he feels like he can’t keep still even if he tried. Tyler had already gone to the venue, his perfectionism one of his remaining vices, and was likely harassing some crew member or another about the night’s setup. He’d sent Jenna over to keep Josh company and the man could barely wait for her to leave; yeah, he loves Jenna, but she was really getting in his way.

Finally, one Harry Potter movie and some more NyQuil (poured down the sink, but she doesn’t know that) later and Josh convinces her he’s gotta take a nap. She reminds him offhandedly to eat some lunch before going to bed, and he is quick to tell her he’s Postmated Panera. He actually does do it, too, ordering a small bowl of chicken noodle soup with an apple. 

In the meantime, there’s plenty of time for him to get a workout in. It’s not ideal, but it leaves him drenched in sweat and his Apple Watch activity ring is closed so it’ll do. When the delivery guy shows up with his food he ends up being a fan, so Josh has to make a big show out of being sick.

“You’re a lifesaver man, sorry I’m sick or I’d get a better photo for ya. But we can definitely get a selfie if you want?” The man nods and they snap a photo, and Josh is really not looking forward to seeing it on Twitter later but he tucks that problem away for later with a neat little bow.

It takes him nearly an hour to finish his cup of soup, as it has to be perfectly hot but then it takes him so long to will himself to eat a bite that he has to heat it up again. He avoids the noodles carefully, then counts them out and determines that he’s allowed to eat half. The whole ordeal is ridiculous and he knows it, but he’s gotta do this. He has to get through this show and be okay. 

 

\-------------- 

Holding On To You, Josh thinks, is one of his favorites to play. Mostly because he loves to watch Tyler in the crowd, their hands raised to him like some kind of God. No, God isn’t the right word. A hero, maybe, a man who has both saved others and been saved. Watching the audience scream their pain back at him with those lyrics is so raw, so beautiful to watch from the drum kit. He sees Tyler changing the world through that song more than any of the others, and he gets to provide the foundation for that moment. 

Tonight he cries when they reach the first chorus, not that anyone can see it behind the sweat. He’s testing out a new thing where he wears each respective city’s basketball jersey instead of taking his shirt off during the set, and the fear of disappointment is a lot to handle while he juggles being, you know, _a drummer in a two man band_. There’s no room to hide behind other instruments and he feels that the most whenever he changes anything.

But Josh also cries because he just wants to end this. Holding On To You is a stark reminder that he is living quite a hypocritical life, preaching to all these kids about taking back their minds and fighting their darkness. He feels so weak, physically and mentally, and so tired. He knows he didn’t eat enough today in the wake of his episode last night and it’s hitting him hard, red alarm bells ringing off in his head. _Please, just let me get through this._

He makes it. Sheer willpower, he thinks, gets him there; it’s an interesting reminder of how much the human body can handle because he was convinced he was going to die about an hour ago. When they take their bow, Josh grips the back of Tyler’s shirt hard enough for the other man to glance over at him, concern written all over his face. 'Just sick,' he mouths, 'I’m okay.'

Tyler is pretty adamant about going home with Josh despite the drummer’s protests. He forces NyQuil down Josh’s throat and what the fuck, _there’s so much sugar in that stuff_. Then he becomes a true mother hen and tucks his best friend in with a glass of ice water and a cold towel over his forehead like they’re in Little House on the Prairie or something. It’s disgustingly domestic and endearing at the same time; so much so that Josh actually ends up appreciating the care of his friend.

He falls asleep quickly thanks to the medication and figures Tyler must have left once he conked out. But Josh’s sleep is anything but peaceful and he wakes up with his phone reading 2 AM, an exaggerating groan escaping his lips. 

“Josh, you good?” Oh, okay, so Tyler hasn’t left. Anxiety spikes in his chest as he wonders if his friend has looked in his fridge, in his cabinets, and seen the food that probably has eating disorder spelled all over it. The voice is followed approximately 3 seconds later by Tyler’s head appearing in the doorway.

“Can’t sleep,” Josh mumbles, throwing an arm onto his forehead, “hurts.” 

He hears shuffling and then, to his surprise, there’s a shift in the mattress. Tyler’s curled up next to him and grabbed the remote, the glaring blue light of the TV glittering in his eyes. He flips through the channels before settling on reruns of Friends that seem to play on an endless loop, the volume basically inaudible. Background noise at most.

“C’mere, you gotta sleep,” Tyler says, his arm opening for Josh to settle into his side. And yeah, they have Debby and Jenna and loved them both unconditionally, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re soulmates. They’d been through everything together, things lots of people don’t get through, and they’d come out the other side. 

Tyler is the one that eventually falls asleep, his hand stilling where it had been running up and down Josh’s arm. And the drummer lay awake, his eyes trailed on the TV but not watching it in the slightest. Numbers are running around in his head, calories burned versus calories consumed, how much he needs to eat tomorrow, the reality that he’ll have to increase or he won’t make it through the next set. His fingers press so hard into his hipbones he thinks he might leave bruises, but he doesn’t stop. He can’t stop.

What the fuck am I gonna do? He wonders. What the fuck have I done?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, sorry for abandoning this for so long. Hopefully I can get myself to be more consistent with it. This chapter contains all the usual warnings for this fic, so please take care. Thank you for reading and leaving lovely comments!

He can’t sleep anymore. His body aches and protests, his mind racing as it obsesses over food and calories and his body. It’s a terrible, torturous side effect of malnutrition and Josh wants it to end so badly but at the same time, he knows it means he’s succeeding. So he lies awake night after night, catching spare hours of sleep that don’t really give him any rest, and drinks three times as much caffeine as usual.

“Josh.” He starts at Tyler’s voice, his tone icy and removed. He’s never heard his best friend say his name that way, like they were strangers.

“Tyler…” They’re sitting at a small coffee shop, Tyler with his hood drawn up and Josh with sunglasses obscuring his face. Tyler sips on a tea with honey while Josh nurses a black Americano, restraining himself from chugging the whole thing at once to get it over with. When the singer asked him to go out, he expected a conversation about Josh’s recent slip-up during a show. While he occasionally messed up and recovered, this time it was distinctly noticeable. The drum kit had been swimming in his vision, the sticks slipping in his clammy hands as he desperately tried to keep up. And while he wasn’t off by much, it was enough for Tyler to look at him with narrowed eyes and confusion. _He’s mad at you because you’re not perfect._

The subsequent post-concert punishment was the completion of a grand slam from Denny’s with a vanilla milkshake that he ordered on UberEats and finished in ten minutes. He knew getting rid of pancakes would be painful and difficult, but that’s what he wanted. He deserved to hurt. It was an ugly affair that ended in a dizzy spell so powerful he blacked out for a moment and nearly cracked his head open on the base of the sink; but it barely even phased him anymore.

“I’m worried about you,” is what Tyler says after several moments of silence. Josh could see his best friend’s hands shaking and immediately felt guilty. The last thing he wanted was to burden others, to burden someone who already had so much on their plate.

“Why?” He replied, feigning ignorance. “I’m fine, just a little stressed. Not used to the crowds being like this.” Tyler looks him dead in the eye and Josh finds he can’t look away no matter how much he wants to. 

“I know, Josh. But I don’t think you’re telling me everything. I haven’t seen you like this since…” He trails off, clearly not wanting to relive the horror of that beautiful day on the quad. Immediately, Josh’s defences go haywire.

“Tyler, I’m not that dumb. You know I worked so freaking hard to get it together so that I could do what I love. I can’t believe you’d accuse me of something like that again; I thought you trusted me more!” He has to try very, very hard not to let his voice raise past polite yelling. The last thing they can have is fans seeing them and assuming they’re fighting in this random cafe in St. Louis.

—-

_Five years earlier_

Tyler is manhandled into the hallway when the heart monitor starts to beep like crazy. He screams as he watches Josh’s organs start to fail, watches his best friend dying right in front of him with skin pale as the sheets he lies on. His guilt is tearing him apart because he knew what was going on and he didn’t do enough, didn’t push Josh as much has he could’ve to seek help. Out in the hallway, he’s breaking down and hyperventilating, uncontrollable tears coming faster than he can wipe them away. So he doesn’t even try.

“Sir, sir, can you hear me?” Asks a passing nurse, stopping when she sees his distress. He vaguely registers her hand on his shoulder, and the contact makes him flinch at first but then grounds him. 

“That’s it, just breathe. In for four, out for four,” she demonstrates, her grey-blue eyes calm. When he settles a bit, she asks him his name. The floodgates open and he tells her; along with about 3 minutes of ranting about how Josh is dying and he can’t do anything about it and he should’ve known and he should’ve made it better.

“Tyler, there’s nothing you could’ve done. If he had cancer, would you blame yourself for not trying harder? Would you consider it your fault?” When he shakes his head and tries to mutter that it’s different, she is gentle and kind. Her name is Sandra and she sits with him in the bleak waiting room as he chews his fingernails to bits hoping for news of Josh. When the doctor comes out to speak with him, he braces for the worst but hopes for better. He supposes ‘not out of the woods yet’ are better than ‘we did everything we could’.

Tyler spent the next several weeks in almost as much therapy as Josh. Though he’d never been the most emotionally stable dude in the world, the trauma of his best friend’s near-death had taken a toll. He barely slept, nightmares terrorizing him every time he closed his eyes. Images of Josh fighting the doctors, screaming, dead. Every phone call Tyler got nearly sent him into a panic attack as he lived in constant fear of a doctor being on the other side saying _we are so sorry, Mr. Joseph_. The guilt was destroying him from the inside-out.

Everything had been so perfect that day. The weather was 65 and sunny, rare for the usually bleak state of Ohio, and nearly every student at OSU was taking advantage. Tyler, Josh, and a few other friends had somehow snagged a coveted dry area where the sun leaked through the trees, grass showing its first signs of life for the year. Their blanket was an old quilt of Tyler’s, embroidered edges tearing a bit at the seams with use. 

They spent hours on that blanket, reading books and comics, talking about films, and eating whatever random food one of them ran to grab at the student union. Selections included lots of Doritos, some magical tater tots, and a mixed fruit bowl that was ridiculously overpriced. Looking back, Josh probably hadn’t touched any of it.

One of the guys brought a blue frisbee, its plastic exterior covered in a fine layer of dorm room dust that they wiped in the grass. Josh opted out, content to read and watch them toss it in a wobbly triangle. The amount of times they heard “hey, watch it!” from other clusters of students was a tad bit embarrassing, but it wasn’t their fault they were out of practice, and the frisbee itself seemed to have a mind of its own.

After about a half hour, Tyler’s friend Mark threw it just out of his reach. He leapt to catch it, but it ended up landing about 10 feet away from where Josh was laying. But when Josh stood up to retrieve it, he never got there. The rest was a blur as Tyler watched his best friend collapse, and he’s so damn thankful that their school is filled with top nursing students because he had no idea what to do. They take his pulse, call the ambulance, _everything_. All Tyler does is hold Josh’s hand and mumble to himself about how fucking stupid he was for letting this happen.

The day Josh woke up, Tyler didn’t visit. He wanted to be there, but every time he saw the other man a mixture of anger, fear, and overwhelming shame paralysed him. Seeing his best friend dying in front of him as a consequence of his mind’s torture is a terrifying reminder that while Josh could get better, there was not a damn thing Tyler could do if he decided he didn’t want to.

It takes him four days of agony and daily sessions with his therapist, Maria, before he can get himself together enough to walk through the doors to the psychiatric ward. They’re so heavy it almost seems like they’re warning him away, the small glass windows regrettably still big enough to show his mess of a reflection. They show silhouettes of dark circles under his eyes, the tenseness of his jaw - he doesn’t want Josh to see him like this, he thinks. But Tyler knows that he isn’t the one that matters right now, so he pushes on.

Josh was moved to the psych ward from the ICU the prior day, the nurse tells him. That doesn’t mean he’s out of medical danger, but they needed beds for more acute patients coming in and he was deemed safe enough to move. He’s still on bed rest, she explains to him, and gets a feeding tube several times a day because his body can’t handle meals large enough to make him gain weight. The overflow of information is almost enough to make Tyler turn around and run the other way.

But when he knocks gently and pushes open the door to Josh’s room, it’s actually a relief. His endless nightmares are a far more horrible picture than what is in front of him; yes, Josh looks like a child swallowed by a sea of blankets. He looks frail, and tired, and his eyes are empty. But he’s not dying, his face isn’t so grey anymore, and the heart monitor beeps, albeit a bit irregularly.

“Josh,” he peeps, his voice quiet. Tyler realises that they must have told Josh he was coming, because his best friend doesn’t look surprised in the slightest.

“Hi Tyler,” Josh replies, voice hoarse from the feeding tube the doctors continue to jam down his throat.

“I’m so sorry.”

Both of them say this at the same time before Tyler rushes to engulf Josh in a gentle hug, careful not to disturb some of the wires that still run along his arms. They don’t talk for awhile, as neither of them have any clue where to begin. But it’s a comfortable silence, one that lays both their pain out in the open without judgment or explanation. 

—

Now, looking at each other across the table at this all-too-indie, overpriced coffeeshop, Josh is afraid. He doesn’t want this anymore, he knows that - he has way too much to lose, including his best friend. Tyler has Jenna now, someone so perfect for him that he knows it must be God’s doing, and Josh is the drummer who can’t seem to deal with his life without self destructing.

He will be better, even if it kills him.

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't noticed, this is largely a rant fic as I deal with my own life; that being said, I'm going to try and finish it but I'm not quite sure yet where it's headed. Furthermore, as of now this is strictly a friendship story, but there's always a chance it might not stay that way so stay tuned.


End file.
